The unofficial web page of the greater Cuenca expat community
Nards Barley wrote:This comment I left yesterday I predict will be a gamebreaker for Cuenca expats.
It was posted after much research, the most important being this excerpt from Wikipedia.Tomato purée is a thick liquid made by cooking and straining tomatoes.[1] The difference between tomato paste, tomato purée, and tomato sauce is consistency; tomato puree has a thicker consistency and a deeper flavour than sauce
Now, apparently they sell imported Hunts tomato sauce at the SuperMarket near Gringolandia, but undoubtedly it costs an arm and a leg.
The imported Italian cans taste great imo and cost around $1.50 a can. if they're whole tomatoes simply blend them to your desired consistency,Â
As for the difference
Tomato paste is thickest
Tomato puree is second thickest
Tomato Sauce (not to be confused for salsa de tomate which is ketchup here) is the sauce for pasta and pizza.
I noticed today a new product at the super market, Pizza Sauce (salsa para Pizza) by Los Andes. I like Los Andes because their products (the ones I use), and including this new product don't contain additives.
I haven't tried yet, but I bought it for $1.09 and will update this thread on the taste.
I have purchased that pizza sauce as well as their spaghetti sauce in the past. I have a jar of their tomato paste as well which I plan to use to make tomato sauce when I need it for the enchilada sauce I will be making. How I miss enchilada sauce out of the can.
Are you keeping up with the happenings in and around Cuenca vis-a-vis the ? Me neither.
However, I was in town yesterday at a coffee shop taking advantage of the unusually good weather we are having and was reading the free sample (issue 19). Mostly, I like to look at the advertisements to see what new businesses are targeting expats.
But I read the interview of the expats (husband,wife and daughter) and got a chuckle from the following Q&A:
What are your least favorite things about Cuenca?
N: I’m ok with the weather, but I agree it was nicer the first year
we were here. It was more like what we’d read about online.
I have to admit I get peeved at some of the visitors, especially
when they complain about things not being like they were in
North America.
S: It has been a bit cold the last three years. During our first
year here, it was warmer more of the time. It’s often been
cloudy, so we can’t see the stars and moon very often!
M: We can’t get things shipped in or out easily, quickly, or
cheaply; not even mail or envelopes.
So basically their chief complaint about Cuenca is the weather and difficulty and cost of shipping things here. If I had to answer that same question, I would probably say the same.Â
This lead me to ponder, what cities have the moniker "City of Enternal Spring" ? I already knew about Medellin Colombia, but are there others? there are others:
Arica, Chile
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Cuernavaca, Mexico (first city with the moniker; dubbed by Alexander von Humboldt)
Da Lat, Vietnam
Kunming, China
MedellÃn, Colombia
Trujillo, Peru
This reminds me that we are still waiting on our expert in Medellin to report on whether the city has lived up to that name during his time there.
I'll give the first question some more thought. Right now I'm on my way to my first Inter------- meetup of the year near Parque Llleras.
(link)
Nards Barley wrote:we are still waiting on our expert in Medellin to report on whether the city has eternally springlike weather.
MedellÃn has been springlike since I arrived in April, although I hesitate to judge any city's year-round or "eternal" nature based on a relatively small sample.Â
My first-ever trip to MedellÃn (about two weeks in duration) was in June of last year (2016) when I encountered some days of high heat -- highs in the low 90's Fahrenheit. I have since realized that the effects of El Niño were still present at that time. The more moderate temperatures here in June of this year (last month) were a pleasant difference during this non-Niño period.
cccmedia in MedellÃn
Nards Barley wrote:This led me to ponder, what cities have the moniker "City of Enternal Spring" ? I already knew about Medellin, Colombia, but are there others?Â
Arica, Chile
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Cuernavaca, Mexico
Da Lat, Vietnam
Kunming, China
MedellÃn, Colombia
Trujillo, Peru
Consider adding to this list...
Vilcabamba, Ecuador
Juan Valdez Coffee Communities, Colombia
Lake Atitlán -- ah-tit-LAHN, Guatemala...
and in Mexico:Â Ajijic (ah-HEE-hick) and the other communities on Lake Chapala .. and some of the colonial cities of the Mexican highlands.
Andy Graham, the "hobo traveler," has posted his list of "perfect climates" on a website he operates .. where he has discussed at length the ideal elevation as he sees it: roughly 5,000 feet above sea level in the tropics. Andy has been posting videos from Lake Atitlán for the past five months.
³Ò´Ç´Ç²µ±ô±ð:Ìý hobotraveler.com 11 perfect climates
 -- cccmedia in MedellÃn
For those who do not adjust well to high elevations:
Trujillo (troo-HEE-oh), Peru, may be the only city on the above lists that is at or near sea level.
Trujillo is on the Pacific Ocean .. and is cooled by the Humboldt current (per Wikipedia).
cccmedia
cccmedia wrote:For those who do not adjust well to high elevations:
Trujillo (troo-HEE-oh), Peru, may be the only city on the above lists that is at or near sea level.
Trujillo is on the Pacific Ocean .. and is cooled by the Humboldt current (per Wikipedia).
cccmedia
I thought you didn't adjust to high elevations?
By the way, I wonder if expat member MIKEGB left Cuenca for San Miguel de Allende, Guanaju because of the weather.
Hey, it's nice to hear from you all. We decided to let our quest for property outside of Cuenca go. The owner kept stalling and after three years we've had enough of him. We hope to get down there sometime in the future and we hope everything's going well for all of you. Gerry in Oregon
Nards Barley wrote:I thought you didn't adjust to high elevations?
Quito, at 9,350 feet above sea level, is far above the elevations of the other cities mentioned.
Possibly just the Bolivian city you mentioned, at about 8,300 feet, is relatively close among those listed on this thread.
My friend Mark, who moved from Quito back to central California last year, said that when he visited back in California, he felt like Superman.
cccmedia in MedellÃn, 4,900 feet elevation
cccmedia wrote:My friend Mark, who moved from Quito back to central California last year, said that when he visited back in California, he felt like Superman.
cccmedia in MedellÃn, 4,900 feet elevation
I would think that the 4,450 ft drop in elevation you have experienced would at least make you feel like the Green Lantern?
Being I just went back to Azogues this week in to cancel my resident visa due to the fact I am a citizen now, I got a laugh out of the following . Thankfully I will miss out on the experience of transfering a visa to a new passport.
We have to transfer our visas to our new passports. Thought we finally had all of the paperwork they required whe we went last week and they required proof of insurance. We showed them our insurance ID cards from Bellgenica, but they said that they need an origial letter from Bellgenica. We are going to get that, but I am afraid that if the wording on the letter is not perfect they will reject us again. I would like to avoid going to Azogues every week for the rest of my life!!!